


RC #133,316,666, Mission #7: Artificial Stupidity

by SkarmorySilver



Series: Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Response Center #133,316,666 [8]
Category: Protectors of the Plot Continuum, The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Department of Mary Sues, PPC Mission, Sporking - Freeform, badfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 14:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkarmorySilver/pseuds/SkarmorySilver
Summary: “I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”— Neo,The Matrix(1999)In which the agents take their job title literally, aided by a C-CAD with a mind of its own.





	RC #133,316,666, Mission #7: Artificial Stupidity

**Author's Note:**

> \- **Copyright Disclaimer:** The PPC and all related property belong to Jay and Acacia. _My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic_ (Rayner’s home continuum) belongs to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. _Kingdom Hearts_ belongs to Disney and Square Enix. _The Matrix_ belongs to The Wachowskis. Agent Rayner Blitzkrieg belongs to me, and is based off [Trotsworth](http://trotsworth.deviantart.com/)'s character, Rainbow Blitz. Agent Evangeline von Lilith also belongs to me.  
> The fic being sporked, "[Awakening](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2714651/1/Awakening)", belongs to [ChiaraStorm](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/573222/ChiaraStorm), who may kindly keep it.
> 
> \- **Betas:**  
>  Edhelistar, Voyd, son_of_heaven176, and SMF.
> 
> \- **Rating:** T/PG-13 - Surprisingly toned-down compared to the original movies, though not by much; teaching the C-CAD to swear IS a hazard, though.
> 
> \- **Note #1:** The dialogue in this mission contains **major spoilers** for _The Matrix Revolutions_. Readers who have not seen this film are advised to watch it in full before reading the story below. Reader discretion is also advised on account of liberal use of explicit language.
> 
> \- **Note #2:** For the upload of this mission to AO3, Rayner's dialogue has been modified to include the speech patterns given to him since 2017.
> 
> \- **Note #3:** This mission takes place a few hours after "[Love Thy Neighbor](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AjfRuQxpukZoYb5LT_orrMi0o9xUomFjPnWNWXLhM3c/edit)".
> 
> \- **Original Posting Date:** July 27, 2015
> 
> \- [Original Document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TOI0ED9EIlAqCQWl4oDDvA5lQGYRY_V9nyGnhfGMYHA/edit)

Cover Illustration: “[ Matrix ](http://jhallpokemon.deviantart.com/art/Matrix-198357756) ” by [ JHALLpokemon ](http://jhallpokemon.deviantart.com/)

> “I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”
> 
> — Neo, _The Matrix_ (1999)

**Pre-Mission**

Evangeline von Lilith strode blithely through the halls of the PPC, without a care in the world. The Flowers meant little to her as long as her partner decreed that she could wander throughout the headquarters with impunity. It hadn’t been easy for said Flowers to decide what to do with her, but despite her attitude problems, it was eventually decreed, thanks in no small part to a lot of insistence from a certain humanized pegasus, that the greatest risk she posed now was getting into a fight with a fellow agent over a petty matter, which was all too common with her anyway.

All the same, she had to be supervised whenever she wasn’t in her extra-dimensional holding cell to avoid causing trouble — a ruling which she ignored with great satisfaction.

By the time Rayner had caught up with her, she was already standing at the Makes-Things Memorial Blast Doors, which led to the check-in counter of the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology. There, they would replace the C-CAD that they had inadvertently destroyed earlier that day.

She pushed one of the doors and held it open just long enough for her partner to try to enter, only to let go of it at the last moment and let it smack him in the face. She laughed as he began cursing in German, checking in on behalf of them both while he stumbled in after her.

“You’re enjoyin’ this _way_ too much, I can tell,” Rayner growled when they entered the lab proper.

“Gee, how did you guess?” she asked.

“Just came to me.”

The agents proceeded towards the desk they were looking for in relative silence, the girl smiling and the boy frowning all the way to the bank. When they arrived, E.V.L. tapped her finger on the tabletop, and they heard a voice from underneath the table.

“What now?!”

“Hello, Makes-Things,” said E.V.L. “We don’t apologize for bothering you.”

Rayner nudged her on the shoulder. “Shut _up_ , Glitter Girl!”

“What in the — Ohhh, _you_ two, huh?” Makes-Things spoke from under the desk. “What do you want?”

“We… uh… kinda broke our C-CAD,” said Rayner, holding up his bandaged hand. “We need to get a new one. The regular CADs aren’t gonna cut it where we’re from, I’m afraid, so…”

“I’ve got only one in stock, for now,” said Makes-Things. “Those things have been practically flying off the shelves lately! Except for that one.” A hand poked up from under the desk and pointed at a nearby shelf where, indeed, there sat just one C-CAD, held together with duct tape.

“What’s so bad about it?” asked E.V.L.

“It has a few… personality quirks, I should say. All of them do, but a lot of the agents who tried this one out returned it after just one mission. They haven’t exactly been happy with it, you see.”

E.V.L. looked at the device and shrugged. “That isn’t an issue with us. We’ll take it.”

“What?!” cried Rayner. “I have enough trouble with you already! Don’t make it worse!”

She snatched the C-CAD from the shelf and grinned smugly. “Oh, I _will_ if I want to. And I _always_ want to.”

“Good, good, now leave me alone! Can’t you see I’m busy?!” cried Makes-Things.

After a quick and courteous thank-you, E.V.L. led the way out of the DoSAT and back towards the DMS. She looked down at the device in her shadow claws, fiddling with its controls.

“I wonder what would happen if this thing tested me out?” she mused aloud.

“You could’ve asked me that _before_ our last C-CAD blew up, _ja?_ ” replied Rayner.

“We both know who I am and who I was. The exploding device was such an _obvious_ outcome. But come to think of it, maybe something in better condition would be more resilient…”

“How would somethin’ held together by duct tape be more resilient than our _old_ C-CAD?” asked Rayner. Then he stopped walking, and said, “You know what, let’s try it out.”

E.V.L. smirked and handed him the device, taking care to place it in his other hand. He guessed that she wanted to see him with _both_ hands burned, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. Pointing it at her, he raised an eyebrow as the agents checked the reading.

[Evangeline von Lilith. OC. Mary Sue. Forget it! There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!]

“Huh, odd,” said E.V.L. “Should we have this thing returned to Makes-Things for additional fixing? If it wasn’t broken, it would list me as a Sue- _wraith_ , not a Mary Sue, that is assuming it _didn’t_ explode. And it certainly wouldn’t speak like Haley Joel Osmont, either.”

“I heard that.”

Rayner let out a yell of surprise and dropped the device, which had apparently spoken colloquially now, onto the floor.

“Owww! Hey, watch it, _Butterfingers!_ I _just_ had my circuits rewired!”

“Oooh, creative,” said Rayner, trying with little success to hide the startled tone in his voice. “For once I get a nickname other than ‘Pony Boy’.”

“‘Pony Boy’? You looked human to me. Hey, could someone pick me up and point me at this guy?”

E.V.L. obliged, grinning from ear to ear.

[Hmmm, lessee… Rayner Blitzkrieg, humanized pegasus, _My Little Pony_ G4 continuum derivative, former replacement of Rainbow Dash. Gary Stu. Yep, looks like it’s the chopping block for you too, Blitzie!]

The screen on the device then showed a ^_^ emoticon.

“Oh, _very_ funny,” said Rayner, rolling his eyes. Then a thought occurred to him. “Hang on… You mentioned something about Kairi’s heart. How do you—”

“Know about _Kingdom Hearts_ ? Funny story, actually. See, once upon a time, the device you’re holding right now, a.k.a. yours truly, got yoinked by a pair of DBS agents and whisked into a slashfic set in the _Re:coded_ sub-continuum.”

The emoticon on the screen was now ^^;.

“It’s listed as a sub-continuum?” asked E.V.L.

“It’s set entirely within a digitized version of Jiminy Cricket’s journal, specifically the digital versions of the worlds described therein. So… yeah, it’s kinda a sub-continuum.”

“Lemme guess, Data Sora/Data Riku?” asked Rayner.

The C-CAD made a noise like a 90’s dial-up Internet connection, and a ;A; emoticon appeared on the screen. “Please don’t… I don’t wanna go back there… Not to _him_ , not to that… That _Heartless_ … No, he was _worse_ than a Heartless, he… You have no idea what he did to me back there…”

“Uh, are you okay?” asked Rayner, his expression now of genuine concern.

“Sounds like you had an exciting day,” said E.V.L. “Brown hair or white?”

Rayner glared at her. “Not helpin’, _Glitter Girl._ ”

The device let out a faint fizzling noise, its screen blinking. “S-sorry, sorry! Bad flashbacks, heh. Anyway, brown hair over here. Yes, I was on the bottom, yes, I was way too wangsty and sarcastic, and yes, I tried to hide in the C-CAD the first chance I got. It was _that_ bad. My AI and that of the device kinda merged together when that happened, though, so they couldn’t get me out on short notice. I’ve _been_ the C-CAD ever since.”

Rayner stared up at the ceiling, his expression grim. “Why, oh why, does Sora _always_ have t’ be on the bottom?”

“Because the fandom wants it,” said E.V.L. “So, you were a character replacement?”

“Alas, yes. A former one, but… yes.”

“What happened to the guy on the top? Not!Data!Riku?”

There was an awkward silence, but the C-CAD steeled itself and answered a moment later. “I don’t know, honestly. I was too busy cowering in terror inside my new casing to find out. From what I heard, though, the agents who had the device on them probably deleted him. As they should’ve.”

“We need to getcha back to our RC as soon as we can,” said Rayner, adjusting the sky-blue goggles on his forehead. “I gotta look up a way to help you out. If only I could get someone who knew computer science to look over your code or somethin’…”

“Heh, I’ve got at least twenty-thousand lines of object-oriented programming! Good luck trying to sort through all of it.”

“Some people’d manage. And they probably will sooner or later. Right, Not!Data!Sora?”

“Please, call me Binary. I got that name because my first reading since the incident registered entirely in ones and zeroes. It still happens every once in a while.”

The screen showed a ^^; emoticon again.

“All righty, Binary it is,” said Rayner. “Let’s get back, before our console goes off, _ja_?”

Once the agents reached their RC, however…

**[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!]**

“Oh, _horse-apples,_ ” Rayner growled. “Forget what I said earlier — Looks like you’ve got a job right outta the gate, Binary. Hope you enjoy the sounds of me and Glitter Girl bickerin’ from sun-up to sun-down!”

“The agent pair who sent me in for ‘fixing’ regarded each other with as much tolerance as any. Same with most of the other teams who tried me out. I suppose working with a team consisting of rivals would be… interesting.”

“You have no idea, trust me.” He walked over to the console and pushed the button. “Hmmm... Hey, Glitter Girl. How familiar are you with _The Matrix_ trilogy?”

“Not as much as I want to be; I did see the first movie once, but that was a while ago. They had Elrond as the main antagonist, though, so I'd like to watch it again sometime.”

“Same here! Hey, what’s that thing about there being no spoon again?”

“Technically, Elrond and Agent Smith were played by the same actor,” said Rayner. “And no, I won’t answer that. The Sue we’re goin’ after today is a daughter of the main character, by the way.”

“Oooh, another protagonist’s kid, huh?” said Binary. “And I get to scan the guy and have my wires blown, _again._ It’s like I was practically programmed to be a figurative chew toy!”

“Look, buddy, I’m not happy about this either,” said Rayner. “The last time I went into a _Matrix_ mission, I got my leg broken. But a mission is a mission, and nothing will convince the Flowers otherwise.”

He shoved his Rainbolt in his bag before pulling a nearby drawer open and fishing out a revolver and ammo. “As Neo would say, we need guns. Lots of guns.”

“Does this count?” asked E.V.L., holding up her Lancer VIII rifle using her shadow claws. Rayner took one look at it, and nodded without a word.

“You’ll need disguises, too,” Binary added. “Needless to say, trenchcoats and sunglasses are absolutely in at this time of the year.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” said E.V.L., nodding towards her partner who programmed disguises and portal coordinates. “Let’s get to work. And _then_ we can marathon the trilogy, for my sake.”

“And Binary’s, too. Don’t forget that,” added Rayner, snapping his goggles over his eyes and stepping back as the portal opened up.

********************

**Act One**

  * Soundtrack: [_The Matrix_ OST — “Trinity Infinity”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA1v207xlOw)



**This is the result of an idea I've had for years. I first came up with the whole plot for this when I was thirteen, and though it's evolved a lot since then, this is really based on three years of work. And I still can't decide if I'm happy with parts of it. There's not pleasing some people…**

The agents stepped into the pre-fic space just in time to hear the Author’s Note. Rayner, now blond and decked out in a stylish black trenchcoat and shades, wore an expression of sudden concern.

“The author came up with the plot when they were thirteen? Yeah, this can only end well,” he muttered.

“The Author’s Note also says that the author got a beta reader,” said E.V.L., also wearing shades and dressed in an outfit reminiscent of Trinity albeit with long black hair. “Unfortunately, given the sheer concept, I don’t know if that will help the Sue’s case.”

“Well, the joke’s on her, in that case,” said Rayner.

“The punchline bein’ an unfortunate demise, of course,” finished Binary, tucked away in a pocket inside Rayner’s coat. “It’ll hafta be painless, though, _ja?_ ”

“Do I have to answer that?” E.V.L. replied, before chuckling. “Well, just to humor you, we’re supposed to get rid of Mary Sues _efficiently_. Torture is not part of the protocol.”

“Well, uh, I just thought it would be worth asking.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Rayner. “But that’s not important right now. The fic’s about to start, so we’d better find a place t’ hide once the scene’s defined.”

The two agents ducked just as the first chapter title, **Chapter I: Kesare** , whizzed over their heads. A moment later, a character named **Kes** (whose full name was Kesare, like the chapter title) and a keyboard appeared. Due to the Words referring to her **oval head** , she literally had an oval for a head with headphones, along with **Locks of dark silky hair** and **chocolate brown eyes**.

The agents looked at each other, completely confused. Even Binary remained silent, at least for now.

“I wonder, does this girl have an oval body as well, or construction lines like in a drawing?” asked E.V.L.

> **Her eyes followed the code, taking in the scrolling characters that ran down the dark green screen like rain. She'd been reading it her whole life, so it felt like a second language. However, the tiny little characters, layer upon layer of them, were only a tiny part of the Matrix. Kes was only following a minute portion of it. In fact, she was only following one person. Having read the code since she was a child, she could practically see the girl she was following in her mind, every detail of her expression written into the code. It always seemed just a little bizarre to her that a person could be defined in a few green characters, but years of reading the screens and seeing the world from a godlike perspective had shown her the code underlying the code, the world within the world.**

Rayner started trembling, and he silently thanked the princesses that he’d bought his sedatives. “What. The. Buck. _How_ , in the name of Celestia’s left rump cheek, could she read the code of the Matrix as a _kid?!_ ”

“Should I or should I not answer that?” asked Binary.

“No need,” said E.V.L. “This fic pretty much speaks for itself.”

So absorbed was the oval-headed character in her work that she didn’t notice someone sneaking up on her until he tapped her on the shoulder and startled her.

> **Kes gave him her most withering glare. "Don't, Dad" she said with a warning glance. "Or one of these days I'm going to start keeping a plasma gun under the console"** **  
> ** **Neo smiled slightly. Even though everyone said Kes looked like a miniature him, he always saw plenty of Trinity in her. She had the same sharpness in her manner, but she was far more voluble.**

There was a moment of dead silence before Rayner spoke up. “Can I spoil the third movie for you guys? Don’t get mad, please!”

“Do you have to?” asked Binary.

“I’d let him, just to annoy you,” replied E.V.L. “But the problem is that I haven’t seen the sequels myself.”

“The explanation pretty much requires context, though, spoilers included,” said Rayner. “Sorry in advance for ruining the fun for you two if you say yes. ”

Another pause. “If it’s absolutely necessary, then apology accepted, ” said E.V.L. “I still hate you, though. ”

“Great! Then, here goes... ” He inhaled deeply, before opening a portal to the Generic Space from before the fic and ushering his partner through. Once it had closed, he started to scream.

“WHY, IN THE NAME OF ALL FOUR OF THE PRINCESSES _AND_ THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY, DOES NEO HAVE AN APPLEBUCKIN’ _DAUGHTER?!_ HE AND TRINITY BUCKIN’ _DIED!_ NEO WAS _DESTINED_ TO DIE! THEY NEVER HAD KIDS, AND THEY _NEVER HAD ANY_ **_INTENT_ ** _OF HAVIN’ KIDS,_ FOR BUCK'S SAKE!”

E.V.L. stared at the panting personified pegasus for ten full seconds, but her only reaction was a disgusted frown.

“If you knew that already, then why didn’t you point that out before we hopped into the fic?” asked Binary.

“There were people next door,” replied E.V.L. “As much as I want to bother them a bit longer, my partner would prefer not to disturb them so soon after they've dealt with an iceling in Middle-earth.”

“I have very strong feelin’s about _The_ _Matrix_ trilogy,” said Rayner, having calmed down just enough to speak in a civil manner. “Too strong for any volume below the ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE to handle.”

“Is that why you took us back to the pre-fic space?” asked Binary.

“Eeyup. Anyway, the other possibility is that Neo had a kid prior to bein’ freed, which has its own host of problems. You can't have a biological child while plugged in, and anyway Neo was a shut-in who never knew anyone else on a personal level at the time.”

E.V.L. licked her upper lip, raising an eyebrow. “What is this taste in the air? It’s like some strange combination of Kes’s glitter and... salt. Pony salt, to be precise.”

“For Celestia’s sake, Glitter Girl,” growled Rayner, rubbing his temple, “this is _her_ mistake, and not mine. So just shaddup and go buck yourself.”

E.V.L. was still smiling as they moved on. By the time they found the Sue again, things only got even worse. Kesare was revealed to be on a ship akin to the _Nebuchadnezzar_ — which, needless to say, did not improve anybody’s mood.

“What is she doing in a place like this?” asked E.V.L. “If this is based on the first movie, Neo and Trinity haven’t even started a relationship yet; they only got started near the end of the film. They only got to know each other on a professional basis before then.”

“You know, I wonder,” said Rayner. “Got any LOs from this continuum? I have Neo, but only him. I respect his canon pairin’ with Trinity, though - just not the way it's been handled here.”

“As I said earlier, it’s been some time since I saw the first movie. So I can’t exactly answer that.”

“Oh, suuuure, ignore the little device held together with duct tape,” said Binary. “Not to mention the fact that he's a C-CAD and can't have at it with anybody. Because that’s just sick and absurd, right?”

“That was exactly why I didn’t ask you,” said Rayner, opening his coat a little to give the device an apologetic look. “You certainly don't look like _that_ kind of toy.”

“Never underestimate the lunacy of Bad Slash, Butterfingers. Also, can I check the canons? I have a feeling that something's very, very wrong with this picture.”

E.V.L. stared up at the Words, her eyebrow rising.

> **It took too long to discover and unplug people, and most had to be dropped off at Zion to make more living space for new recruits. Because of that, there were only five permanent members of the crew; Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, Link and Kes. At the moment, they had one recruit with them – Elysia – but she was only there to get more experience in the Matrix. They only had space for one more, so they had to choose carefully.**

“Rayner, give me the C-CAD,” said E.V.L.

“Huh? Why so interested alluva sudden? You only saw the first movie.”

“I know. But I know the names of the canons. Binary’s right — there _is_ something wrong.”

He pulled the device out of his coat and handed it to her. She pointed it first at Neo, then at the Sue.

[Thomas Anderson a.k.a. Neo. _The Matrix_ canon, main protagonist. Out Of Character 45.76% and rising. The Matrix has you.]

[Kesare, possible surname Anderson. OC. Mary Sue. Why am I not surprised?]

“My thoughts exactly,” said E.V.L. “But what are Trinity and Link doing here?”

“Trinity was part o’ the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar_ in all three of the movies,” said Rayner. “However, Link replaced Tank in the second one, and then reunited with his family and stayed in Zion towards the end of the war with the machines. My guess is that this takes place _before_ that time.”

“Which, as you said, makes their having a kid totally nonsensical,” said Binary.

“Right.”

The agents followed the Sue towards the med bay, whereupon they heard Morpheus’ voice. He was talking with Trinity, having received orders from Commander Lock about turning back.

“Turning back to where?” asked E.V.L.

“Zion, more than likely,” said Rayner. “It’s the only place they _can_ go back to at this point in the timeline.”

Trinity began worrying about the fact that everyone in Zion was paying attention to Kes more than anything whenever they visited, which elicited a snort from E.V.L.

“They think she's the One, huh? Like they would even consider that possibility.”

A drop of Sar-Plasm landed on her head, making her scowl. “Why did you give me long hair again? I like it in other contexts, but... ”

“’Cuz I didn’t want you to be mistaken for Trinity, ” replied Rayner.

“Oh, so you think she could pass off as her with just a similar costume, huh?” said Binary. “Did it really slip your mind that she could practically sweep the ceiling of your RC with the top of her head? Seriously, she's like, seven feet tall, with feet twice as big as yours and arms that could reach halfway across the room if they weren't tied up! Doesn’t she look different enough compared to Trinity as it is?”

“Trinity is tall as well,” said E.V.L. “Taller than most of the male characters, in fact. Honestly, Binary, I don’t know whether to laugh at your conceit or feel genuinely insulted.”

“Wait ’till ya get a physical form with feet that are three times the size of your head, Not!Data!Sora,” Rayner chuckled. “But yeah, you're right. The long hair was probably overdoin’ it in hindsight. But we can’t argue about that now, not when we've got a Sue on our hands.”

The responses he got were an eye-rolling from E.V.L. and a -_-' emoticon from Binary, but they wisely decided to shut up.

Meanwhile, after declaring that she didn’t want Kes to set foot on Zion, Trinity stormed out, catching her daughter in the act of spying on them. The oval-headed Sue said she wanted to see Morpheus, and Trinity left -- but not before the agents were able to get a scan of her.

[Trinity. _The Matrix_ canon, deuteragonist. Out Of Character 52.76% and rising. Do C-CADs get migraines? I think I'm getting one.]

“One would think that Neo would be the protective one, ” said E.V.L. “The main role Trinity had was his love interest, which is sad because she was a capable character on her own and the producers could’ve done more with her by herself. But as strong as she is, she is no Ellen Ripley.”

“That’s a harsh assessment, but you’re right,” said Rayner. “Neo always carries the day. All day, every day.”

“But wouldn’t that make him a Canon Stu?” said Binary. “In that case, why not let him get rid of Kes and call it a day?”

“Pfff, are you kiddin’? Against all logic and reasoning, she's his daughter. Why would he kill his own stupid kid?”

“Which is why we are here,” added E.V.L. “This is the Department of Mary Sues for a reason. ”

“I liked Bad Slash better, but hey, I won’t complain.”

“Why, because you'd rather face off against Neo's uncanonical daughter than be part of the _Kingdom Hearts_ yaoi equivalent of _Fifty Shades of Gray_?”

The device sputtered, fizzled, showed an X_X emoticon on its screen, and finally went dead.

Rayner snatched the device from his partner and frantically smacked it a few times. “Binary? Hello?! Earth to Binary?!” He gave the device a look of despair, and then turned on his partner. “Great job, ya sack o’ horse-apples! You just gave our tour guide a virtual aneurysm!”

“Too soon?”

“The hell it was, Glitter Girl! That was the most insensitive thing I've ever heard from you yet! What the buck is _wrong_ with you?!”

“I didn’t mean to say it that way, but I can’t take it back now. After all, it's probably true.”

Rayner took off his shades and dragged his nails down his face, gritting his teeth. “Whether or not you take it back, I'll have you know right now: Your mockery of our new device has left us unable to scan anything ’til we get it back to Makes-Things. So if you know what's good for you, then from now on you'd better watch your tongue, or so help me princesses, I will rip it out o’ your Celestia-damn mouth! And for that matter, just don't even talk to me or anyone else for the rest of this mission unless it's for notin’ charges! Understood?!”

She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off.

“Not. A. Word.”

The agents decided to skip past the Sue’s conversation with Trinity, the end-of-chapter Author’s Notes, and the beginning Author’s Notes of the next chapter. E.V.L. silently noted that the Sue had been tracking someone else… but whom?

Their question was answered when the chapter title, “ **Chapter II: Kiana** ”, flew by.

> **The blonde-haired girl sighed irritably. The excitement of the hack left her with an adrenaline rush that stayed with her for hours afterwards, but then she was hit with a sense of emptiness and loneliness. It was almost becoming an addiction, the compulsion to hack. It ate into her system and embedded itself under her skin.**

The fic continued describing the new girl’s growing obsession with hacking, and how she’d discovered the Matrix. Rayner mock-yawned and rolled his eyes.

“So, when does this fic take place?” he asked. “Before the first movie or after?”

“I can’t say for certain,” said E.V.L. “But there seem to be a lot of parallels to the first movie, so if it ends up being the new girl taking over Neo’s role…”

“Huh. Good point. But if we’ve got one Sue already, though, why does the fic focus on this new girl?”

“Because she’s another Sue. Simple as that.”

“There can’t be more than one, though, _ja?_ Otherwise the story wouldn’t know which one to pick.”

Now it was E.V.L.’s turn to facepalm. “Our last mission had _two_ Suvians, as did the first one you and I had together.”

“No, each of them had a Sue and a _replacement_. Big difference. What I was trying to say was, could there be more than one straight-up Sue who ain’t a canon duplicate or something? Could they all ruin the continuum independently?”

She huffed. “It can, and it has. _So_ many times.”

“Most o’ the Sues we’ve dealt with are alone in the world, the cast, and the fic. And the same is true for those in previous missions, too. Two Sues at once is… kinda new.”

“There have been missions with as many as _seven_ Sues at once, though. One, two, buckle my shoe, what difference does it make?”

“Three, four, open the door. Get on the floor. Everybody walk the dinosaur.” He made a dramatic flourish. “In all seriousness, though, you’re probably right. It could be worse…”

E.V.L. pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, “Why, oh why, did I have to life-bond with you, of all people?”

“Because I bucked up. And I _would_ apologize for it if you weren’t such an asshole.”

“You’re welcome. How’s Sue Number Two?”

Rayner started, and then checked the Words. “ _Scheiss,_ she’s already in class! We missed her physical description and her name! C’mon!”

“Wait. We’re in a high school?”

“Apparently. Let’s go before we miss her!”

They rushed over to the classroom door, waiting outside. The Sue, who apparently called herself **Kiana** , was being called upon by the teacher, who used her name inside the Matrix: **Cassandra Wilcox**.

“Why do these nicknames hafta be so Speshul?” asked Rayner.

“I can’t say for certain whether Kiana is a Speshul name. We have canon names like Trinity, Morpheus, Cypher, Link, Tank, and of course Neo.”

“All the canons’ codenames have a theme. Trinity and Morpheus are religious names; Cypher, Tank, and Link are utility-driven; and Neo is an anagram of ‘One’. Kiana, though… It just sounds cool to the author.”

“Good point. Come to think of it, I wonder what our hacker names would be. I guess mine could be Lilith, but that’s already my surname. You?”

“I’m thinkin’ Pegasus myself, obviously, though Bellerophon also sounds nice, seeing as he tamed Pegasus and slew the Chimera.”

She chuckled. “What, no Dash or Rainbow or—”

“Wait a minute, didn’t I tell you not t’ say anythin’ unless it’s for charges?”

She shrugged, but continued smiling.

The agents continued tailing Kiana after she left the classroom and spent the rest of the day daydreaming, the fic suddenly fast-forwarding as it went. Rayner shifted uncomfortably from the pace change, but luckily didn’t collapse. Then he noticed something else, and _did_ collapse.

Clutching his head and groaning, he didn’t even care when E.V.L. crouched over him and asked, “Are you okay? Did the fic pull the ground out from under your feet?”

And then she read the Words too. “Oh, she did _not._ ”

“So, you noticed too?” asked Rayner.

“That the fic is describin’ how she tried to commit suicide so that her past could sound trajeck? Yes, I certainly did.”

“And then she found hacking and the Matrix as the one way out of her depression… Typical.”

Rayner twitched. “BURN IT! BURN IT WITH FIRE! OR BETTER YET, ACTIVATE THE ORBITAL BUCKIN’ FRIENDSHIP CANNON!!”

She grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little. “Rayner, calm down. I’ll have to tranquilize you if you keep screaming or you’ll give us away.”

“Right. Sorry!”

Once Rayner had calmed down, they made their way to Kiara’s room. She was trying to hack, wangsting in urple prose all the while, when her phone went off. From under her bed.

“Oh, please tell me this isn’t goin’ where I think it is,” said Rayner.

> **Kiana paused for a moment, her heart leaping into her mouth. "The Matrix" she breathed.**
> 
> **"Got it in one"**
> 
> **"Can you tell me what it is?" Kiana made no effort to keep the hope out of her voice. She had been looking for this for so long…**
> 
> **"I can do better. I can show you what it is. But first we must meet face-to-face"**
> 
> **Kiana nodded, then remembered she was on the phone. "Yes. When?"**
> 
> **"Tonight, at midnight, in the abandoned warehouse eight blocks down from your house. Will you be there?"**
> 
> **"Yes" Her voice was soft, but determined.**
> 
> **"Good. All I am promising is answers, no more"**

Four stray periods flew by. Rayner stifled a gag, and E.V.L. shook her head slightly.

“Redux of the first movie, totally calling it,” said the demon-girl.

“If that really is the case, I’ll be _so_ upset,” said Rayner. “C’mon, let’s get to Chapter Three and see what happens from there.”

Skipping past the Author’s Notes (and responses to reader commentary), the agents ducked under the next title ( **Chapter III: The Escape** ) and found themselves on board the _Nebuchadnezzar_ once again.

> **Even though Kes was almost at the point of feeling nauseous with hunger, she made her way directly to her Operating station. The rest of the crew were there already, and they all looked up as she entered.**
> 
> **"Sorry I'm late," she apologised, keeping her voice deliberately calm and pitched low.** (Rayner paged the Department of Redundancy Department in the meantime.) **"Is it time to go in yet?"**
> 
> **"Almost," Morpheus said. "First, we need to go over our plan. Have you got a secure location yet Link?"**
> 
> **Link tapped in a few final keys decisively. "Yes sir. It's at an office block near the edge of the city. There's a direct hard-line and it'll be totally empty. Give me and Kes five minutes and we'll be able to disable the alarm system, no problems"**

Another stray period floated by as E.V.L. gave Rayner a questioning look.

“The operators really can influence the Matrix,” he said. “They mostly get the rebels in and out, but they do that using a pirated signal that affects the global transmission directly.”

“I believe what they meant was that Link would get Kes in and she would get the alarm system taken care of. Perhaps they could pull it off from the ship, though; who knows?”

Then **Elysia, a short woman with slightly curly red hair and pale brown eyes, spoke up. "How long will it take to unplug her?"**

> **"If she picks the red pill, then it will take the machines five to ten minutes to disconnect her, and then we can pick her up from the sewers" Morpheus explained. "If we all jack out immediately, we can pick her up and move away as quickly as possible. There are too many sentinels here, and I do not want to have to use the EMP if at all avoidable"**

Two more stray periods floated by as the agents examined the bit character. Rayner frowned. “If only we still had Binary with us. Maybe he could give her a scan.”

“Well, he’s gone for now,” she said, before continuing in her head. _And good riddance, I say. I never thought a C-CAD could be so impertinent._

 _Look who’s talkin’,_ Rayner thought back. _Or rather, not_ supposed _t’ be talkin’._

She ignored him. “Do we head into the Matrix after the Sue? It would make sense for the fic to make that transition.”

“Perhaps. We’ll probably need to adjust to the digital format, though. Fun times.”

“We did that for the last two scenes that were in the Matrix, you ignorant glitterbag. This isn’t any different.”

“…Oh.”

Just then, Link spotted three agents heading towards the warehouse they were using as a meeting point with Kiana. After the hard line was revealed to be about two blocks away, the canons and the bit debated about how to handle them. Kes made the decision to send a message to Kiana.

“Typical,” said E.V.L. “Leave it to the Sue to take charge like they always do.”

“That’s an interestin’ thing for you to say,” said Rayner. “You used to come off as a Sue apologist, unless I heard wrong. Isn’t this ‘common Sue trait’ thing supposed to come from me?”

“I never suggested that I supported Sues at all. It’s just that I feel like I’m the only one who deserves to take over the continuum.”

Rayner rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself. Let’s go follow Kiana and enjoy the—”

“Wait. They mentioned something about Neo being bugged. Like in the first movie.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Does this mean this is a retelling of the first movie with Kiana taking Neo’s place, or…”

“Neo would’ve been shoved into a plot hole if that were the case. I don’t see that here.”

“Oh.”

Then another scene shift threw them onto some kind of street as the fic shifted back to Kiana.

> **Kiana was regretting not wearing a jacket. The night air was chillier than she had expected, and her thin grey t-shirt was not suited to the cold. It had been surprisingly easy for her to get out of the house. Her mother had fallen asleep after a few shots of something and her sister was never in anymore. Kiana had been able to walk straight out of the house without hesitation.**

E.V.L. shivered a little, but she didn’t really care. The agents were now in the Matrix (again), and it felt a bit uncanny, yet at the same time, a bit mundane. Such was the artificial world that had fooled Neo for over two decades.

The agents followed Kiana in silence towards the warehouse, keeping track of the Words all the while. As they walked, the world around them, normally tinted slightly green, now took on a strange shade of faint urple.

 _What’s goin’ on?_ Rayner asked in his head. _Are we dealing with excessive prose or is this..._

 _A glitch in the Matrix?_ E.V.L. finished. _Maybe both. It’s hard to tell at this point, but we can't rule out any possibilities yet._

_Your mind speakin’ never fails to creep me out, E.V.L. Even after like, half a year or so, I can never get used to it._

_Yes, but that hasn't stopped me embracing it. There are so many ways in which I can abuse its power. Especially when it comes to annoying you._

_Great. Now your entire buckin’ head has to shut up!_

The agents and Kiana then arrived in front of the warehouse, with more urple prose describing how foreboding the quiet was. Rayner began carefully edging away, as though expecting something bad to happen.

E.V.L. was about to ask Rayner why he was being so cowardly when **A crash tore through the silent air, and Kiana started. The sound echoed around the street, and just as the sound died, another followed it.**

Specifically, the sound of fighting, and lots of it.

E.V.L. swiftly followed her partner to the nearest corner, and the two of them read the Words as the fight between the random Matrix agents and the canons spilled over to Sue Number Two.

> **Now, one of the suits had noticed her. His smirk was malicious, and the gun in his hand did nothing for Kiana's confidence over the situation.**

Rayner had to press a hand to his mouth to avoid bursting into laughter, while E.V.L. merely facepalmed. The fic had taken the Words literally, resulting in an animated tuxedo advancing on Kiana with a smiling face painted on its front and a gun in one of its glove-hands.

The Sue grabbed a gun that had suddenly appeared next to her, and fired. The clothes twisted as though they were being wrung by a laundry worker, avoiding the bullet completely. Then it prepared to return fire.

Before the agents could see what had happened next, however, they heard a noise coming from inside Rayner’s coat. Something seemed to be fizzling inside one of his pockets, and he reached inside to pull it out.

A brief Author’s Note startled them at that moment, causing him to drop the C-CAD onto the ground again.

“Ow!”

“Oh, thank Celestia, Binary!” cried Rayner. “I thought we'd hafta take you back to Makes-Things or something! Ya gave me such a scare!”

The screen showed static for a brief moment, then sparked back to life. “Did I? Sorry about that! But first things first, Butterfingers, could you pick me up?”

Rayner frowned at the device, which added a hasty “Please?”

He did so, looked around to make sure nobody else was listening, and cried, “What the _hay_ did we just watch?!”

“Aside from what may be the least interesting fight scene ever written, not very much,” replied E.V.L. “The clothes coming to life were mildly amusing, however. I'm willing to bet, though, that Kiana will either find a way out of this or be saved by Neo, or else we wouldn't have nine more chapters to go.”

“Wait, _nine more?!_ Did I miss only one chapter? I was hoping I'd be able to snooze through the rest of the mission!”

“You were in _sleep mode?!_ ” cried Rayner, smacking the C-CAD against his palm. “Goddammit, you little _Scheissdreck_ , we thought you’d broken down!”

“What did it look like to you?! Your partner was being a total prick! This was the only way I could get away from her, at least until I sensed a Suvian’s characterization and woke up. Hey, don’t look at me like that!!”

“It doesn’t matter now, Binary,” said E.V.L. “Two Sues and some sentient laundry on the loose in the Matrix are far more important to me than your maturity, or lack thereof.”

Beat. “…Oh, no. What did I miss while I was out?”

E.V.L. gave the device a hopeless look. “Oh, Binary... You wouldn’t believe it if we told you.”

********************

**Act Two**

  * Soundtrack: [_The Matrix_ OST — “The Hotel Ambush”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIQ21LCicgU)



> **Chapter IV: Choice**
> 
> **Suddenly, another pistol was shoved to the Agent's head, and pulled before it could dodge it. The body fell to the floor, amazingly lifeless. Kiana looked up at the leather-cad female in front of her. She was handling the firearm with competence and the air of one who is usually in complete control of themselves. She glanced down at Kiana, her expression masked by masking sunglasses.**

The agents stepped through the portal… to find themselves in the same place as before.

“Wait, did time just stop?” asked Rayner.

“Apparently, we found ourselves at a cliffhanger near the end of the third chapter,” said E.V.L.

“We’re not near any ledges, though,” said Binary. “Oh, wait, you’re referring to when a scene is left hanging for tension? Okay, then!”

“You really are annoyin’, Binary.”

“Look who’s talking! I already told you guys why I shut down! Besides, at least I didn’t invade at least four different continua the way you did!”

“How did you guess that?” she growled, pointing her gun at the device.

“Didn’t Rayner use me to scan you before we went on this mission?”

“Then why did you identify me as a Mary Sue, and not a Sue-wraith?”

“Because you’re your own character now, and if you keep being so intolerable, so help me—”

“Will you _stop that?!_ ” Rayner snapped, making E.V.L. glare at him. The C-CAD showed an -_-’ emoticon on its screen.

“I can understand E.V.L. bein’ an asshole all the time,” Rayner continued, “but the last thing I need is for our bucking _C-CAD_ to be the one who gives us away! And if you two keep arguing, that’s more than likely. Just… Leave each other alone, will ya?”

E.V.L. turned away from him and sulked, just as Trinity led Kiana out of the warehouse, shooting another Matrix!Agent who tried to follow them.

Then a scene shift jolted the PPC agents, putting them back on the **Neb** . Kes was now operating on the computer, locking up the security system of the office meeting point within the Matrix. She then provided **a black Cadillac** for Neo, Trinity, and Kiana to escape in. Onboard the ship, Rayner suddenly stiffened, teeth bared. It may not have been unusual for E.V.L., but Binary’s scanner detected that the male agent’s ears seemed to be pointing slightly forward.

“Isn’t the forward ear thing a sign of danger for horses?” he asked. “Given that you’re a humanized pony, I’d like to know what’s eating you. No no, not literally!”

Rayner had given him a fierce glare. Then he discreetly pointed the C-CAD at Kes and whispered, “Why don’tcha see for yourself.”

“Oh, come _on_ , I already gave you a reading! She’s a Sue!”

“How did you guess?”

“Because she’s the daughter of Neo, she’s serving as the operator, and—” He broke off, fizzling a little. “…She’s serving as the operator. Yen Sid’s beard, she’s stolen that role from Link!”

“Precisely. There can only be one operator per ship.”

“And given how good Kiana is with computers, I’ll bet _she_ will become an operator as well, just for good measure,” said E.V.L.

“If that happens, we’ll be witnessing a _major_ violation of the standards of the canon—”

Another scene shift threw them back into the Matrix. Specifically, they found themselves in the trunk of the Cadillac, which was now speeding down the route that Trinity had memorized to get Kiana to safety.

“E.V.L.! Get your boot outta my face!” Rayner cried, his voice slightly muffled.

The taller female struggled a little in the cramped space. “I can’t move any more than you can, Pony Boy. Otherwise I’d have pulled your feet out of my arse!”

“There are many times when I wish I wasn’t in a tiny plastic box,” said Binary. “This isn’t one of them.”

“Why did the fic put us here, anyway?!” said Rayner.

“Probably because the scenery was so poorly defined that this was the only logical place we could hide in, theoretically speaking,” said E.V.L.

“What’s wrong with a lil’ white space? The Construct is basically that.”

“But how would we keep track of the Sue?”

“We could always portal. So why this?”

“Because it’s funny.”

Binary’s voice made both of them go silent.

“You think this is funny, don’t you?” Rayner spat. “The only thing even remotely funny here is that for a Sora replacement, you’re all talk and no action whatsoever, rather than the other way around!”

“I didn’t say it was funny to _me!_ And for the record, there’s no way I _can_ do anything unless it’s to get an OOC reading on a canon or something!”

“I would’ve said the same,” E.V.L. added.

Rayner huffed, ignoring the scent of boot soles. “Fuckin’ Narrative Laws of Comedy…”

Both his partner and his device went silent for a moment. And then Binary spoke quietly.

“Since when did you think it was okay to swear?”

“Since now. Besides, Sue Number Two just dropped an F-bomb according to the Words, and they do that in canon as well. So I guess it’s okay.”

“I feel more comfortable when you use MLP euphemisms, though. Maybe you should just stick with—”

“Why the fuck should I care?! We’re stuck in the trunk of a car, and Neo and Trinity are gonna rescue a _second_ fucking Sue like they did with Neo himself in the first movie!”

“How do you know that?” asked E.V.L.

“The Words are doing a recap of the car escape, only without all that bullshit about the bug in the belly.”

“You really need to stick to euphemisms from now on, Pony Boy. Swearing like a human doesn’t sound good coming from you.”

“This is an R-rated continuum. I have every right to swear.”

The agents and the C-CAD fell silent for the rest of the trip, which led them to the same office building as in the movie — the meeting place with Morpheus, in other words. As soon as they heard the car doors open and close, Rayner pulled out the RA. “‘Kay, _now_ we have a location. C’mon, let’s get outta this cramped little dump.”

He opened a portal beneath them, dumping them all in the lobby. Luckily, the Sue was already on her way up to the floor where Morpheus was waiting.

> **Neo smiled suddenly. "What's so funny?" Trinity asked him.**
> 
> **"You said practically the same thing to me before I met Morpheus."**
> 
> **Trinity returned the smile. "After so many unpluggings, I guess I got bored of trying to be different."**

Rayner gagged, and then pointed Binary at the canons, to the latter’s displeasure.

[Thomas Anderson a.k.a. Neo. _The Matrix_ canon, main protagonist. Out Of Character 65.32% and _still_ rising. Whoa. Déjà vu.]

[Trinity. _The Matrix_ canon, deuteragonist. Out Of Character 75.45%. WARNING! CANON RUPTURE IMMINENT!!]

Binary began making the dial-up tone again, his casing releasing smoke, and Rayner instinctively hugged him close.

“You okay? I’m guessin’ you’re not, from what I’m seeing here…”

“Look, Butterfingers, if you can’t see a problem here, you probably can’t see at _all!_ Okay, scratch that, you’d be not just blind, but totally _brain dead!_ I mean, I have no eyes whatsoever, and I just _know_ Neo wouldn’t be so… so _witty._ ”

“Yes, he is apparently the stoic type,” said E.V.L. “Though I did find his failure to take the revelation of what happened to humanity once he was freed… rather amusing, I should say.”

“Suefluence, totally callin’ it,” added Rayner. “And speakin’ of his reaction, this is starting to sound even more like a retread of the first movie, with Kiana in place of Neo.”

“I hope she throws up once she discovers what the war has done,” E.V.L. said with a smirk. Rayner ignored her, opening a portal to the next chapter.

Skipping past the Author’s Notes, the agents found Kiana in the medbay of the hovercraft, having already been unplugged.

An unidentified girl began talking to her, though the agents could tell from her oval head that it was clearly Kes, the only other girl her age on board.

The agents said nothing while the scene played out, but then a slight time shift made them wobble. Sue Number Two had fallen asleep and woken up again. Now, there were needles all over her, just like how Neo was when he was being revitalized in the movie. Both agents cringed instinctively.

Kiana, predictably, did not take her new state so well. Especially not the needles.

And once again, she passed out. One more jolt in the Word World, and she woke up again, this time wearing proper clothes. There was an IV bag hanging near her, connected to some kind of a metal hole in her arm.

She pulled the plug out, feeling a sting of pain.

E.V.L. cringed again, and looked at her partner, who was just barely starting to tremble. His nostrils were flared, and his mouth slightly open, drinking in the scent coming from the Sue’s arm hole.

“I’ll take care of this,” said E.V.L. “Your bag, please.”

He gave it to her, upon which she took it and thrust her own hand into it. She pulled out a box, opened it, and fished out one of the numerous needles inside.

“Wait, you’re drugging him?” asked Binary. “Isn’t that, uh, not a good example for children?”

“Why should that matter?” said E.V.L., rolling up the sleeve of her partner’s nearer arm and injecting the sedative before he could launch an attack. “He _needs_ his meds to keep from attacking someone he shouldn’t. Like me, for instance.”

Rayner, who had recovered from his ordeal, turned and glared at her. “When will you _ever_ learn, Glitter Girl? But yeah, Binary, what she said. Also, why take out the IV?! It’s there for a reason, and it’s like, literally hooked into her bloodstream! If it’s got somethin’ you need, takin’ it out would be suicidal!”

Meanwhile, Kiana realized that there were other holes on her body, and that she had no hair. And then she decided to explore the place she’d ended up in and find out some answers.

The agents followed her in silence, heading over to the mess hall. There, they found the oval-headed girl again, **with a mug of water and a dish of something that reminded Kiana uncomfortably of white vomit.** After introducing herself, Kes told Kiana that the latter would get all the answers soon.

“Oh, she will, alright,” said Rayner. “In whatever afterlife there is in this continuum, that is. And that goes to Kes as well.”

“All in due time,” said E.V.L. “We need enough charges first.”

“Hate to agree with her, but she’s right,” added Binary. “You have a Duty to attend to, after all. Should we just skip to the next chapter, or—”

“Hold up,” said Rayner, his nostrils flaring again. “Somethin’ else is comin’ up at the end of this one. Let’s wait for a moment.”

The agents did indeed wait until Kiana had gone, upon which the fic shifted back to Kes. She was now doing a blood test for Kiana, just to find out what she was like.

To her surprise, and the horror of the agents, there were matches to Kiana's profile in the forms of none other than Neo, Trinity... and Kesare.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it? ” said E.V.L. “Two daughters of Neo for the price of one.”

“That is _way_ too implausible a coincidence to be anything but speshul,” added Rayner. “We’re gonna have extra Sue Soufflés this week, I just know it. Okay, _now_ we can move on. Follow me!”

The agents made their way into the next chapter, which continued following Kes over the next few days. As the fic fast-forwarded through her watching over Kiana, Kes began wondering if something was wrong. What if they were related? E.V.L. silently noted that she wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

The arrival of Trinity brought her back to reality, specifically asking for her to take a break. Kes politely refused, and then asked, **"Have you ever had a feeling, something that's almost completely unfounded and really should be impossible, but you know is true?"**

“We have,” E.V.L. whispered. “That’s what we’d call a breach in canon logic.”

“Don’t forget Suefluence, replacement, Words making ridiculous things happen, and Sues talking out of their asses like they wrote the laws of the multiverse,” said Binary.

“Oh man, that last bit _always_ gets me,” said Rayner, making a mock throat-slash gesture. “Oh, look, more Trinity waxin’ love for Neo. Not Twu Wuv, no, Neo/Trinity is a canon ship. But she shouldn’t be upgradin’ their relationship until _Revolutions_ , prior to her death!”

“Did you see Neo flying during any of the fight scenes I missed?” asked Binary.

“Nope. Why?”

“Neo learns to fly near the end of the first movie. He sounds like a tactical sorta guy from what I’ve seen. Why can’t he just fly away from Matrix!agents and such?”

“Yeah, he _should_ be able to escape a fight in this way starting from _Reloaded,_ ” said Rayner. “That narrows down our timeframe to the first movie and… _Scheiss_ , this is _bad._ ”

“Canon timeline upheaval?” asked E.V.L.

“Abso-buckin’-lutely. See, I used the euphemism. Happy?”

She gave him a nasty look, but didn’t argue. “Let’s get to the next scene. Does Morpheus inform Kiana in this chapter or no?”

“Actually, he does. And she takes it about as well as Neo does. Yes, this includes throwin’ up. You’re welcome. Morpheus is okay, though he looks kinda tacky.”

“Take me there,” said E.V.L. “I want to see it.”

They portaled into the Construct. Nearby, Kiana was talking to Morpheus, who was **dressed suavely in a dark purple suit and sharp green tie. His eyes were obscured by wraparound sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose.**

The scene played out in the same way as canon, albeit with Kiana in place of Neo, and then the agents were thrown back into the ship, thankfully ending up just outside the room the canons were in. Kiana, of course, **vomited neatly onto her lap.**

“Eww, that’s nasty,” said Binary.

“Understatement,” added E.V.L. “At least Neo puked on the floor.”

“Funny thing — that wasn’t scripted,” said Rayner. “Keanu Reeves had eaten some chicken that hadn’t agreed with him before filming that scene.” He stiffened a little, nostrils flaring again. “Hey, could you please tranq me again, in case the vomit triggers me?”

E.V.L. did so without complaint, pausing only to note the Words. She raised an eyebrow. “Link is now recounting Cypher’s betrayal to Kes… Beelzebub’s proboscis, this _is_ after the first movie, and presumably before the second. Binary, can you confirm?”

Rayner fiddled with the C-CAD for a bit, trying to check where the characters were in the timeline. What he got wasn’t pretty.

“Can’t get a reading at all,” said Binary. “The Sues are going through the events of the first movie, but the canons are acting like the movie already happened. _Years_ after the fact, actually.”

“Charge for making Neo and Trinity… consummate the latter’s prophecy… far sooner than you suggested?” E.V.L. asked to Rayner.

“Already listed. And makin’ the second movie happen at least fifteen years after the first is _also_ already listed. C’mon, let’s keep movin’. I don’t wanna hear any more of this bullshit, not after knowin’ how far away we are from the canon timeline!”

“Rayner, you’re swearing again.”

“The entire plot’s been _fucked up on an astronomical scale_ and you care more about my language? Geez, you really _are_ insufferable, Glitter Girl!”

“Back at you, Pony Boy.”

Their argument became silent, the words being transmitted from mind to mind becoming more explicit by the moment, as they filed through the portal into Chapter Seven.

“And I thought I’d actually _like_ seeing agents bicker,” said Binary, flashing another -_-’ emote onscreen.

********************

**Act Three**

  * Soundtrack: [_The Matrix_ OST — “Ontological Shock”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzVd28r3ddQ)



> **Chapter VII: Preparation**
> 
> **Kes had walked out of Kiana's cabin the night before completely wracked and shaken. She fled to her own cabin and flung herself on her bed, staring at the ceiling in her habitual pose as she tried to collect her thoughts. There was one simple concept that kept recurring as she thought back.**
> 
> **_Fuck._ **
> 
> **_Fuck._ **
> 
> **_Buggering shit-arsed fuck._ **

“See, I _told_ you there was profanity,” said Rayner. “You can go home now.”

E.V.L. rolled her eyes. “In that case, if you can swear, so can I. Why the shit are these little fuckfaces related? _How_ are they related? I don’t think the machines would give a bloody fuck about that…”

Rayner shook his head. “What made ya guess that, exactly?”

“Their eyes. They have the exact same eye color. ‘Buggering shit-arsed fuck’, indeed.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, why couldn’t they just be _different_ pieces of shit and not the same shit?!”

“Can we stop now, before you give our device any ideas? He’s annoying enough as it is.”

“Hey!” cried Binary.

“You shut down on us because I was being honest. And I’m being honest now.”

“Don’t tempt me. Also, did this Kiana really have to throw up onto herself? That’s just gross.”

“You’re tellin’ us,” said Rayner. “Y’know, for a little piece of plastic, wires, and computer parts, you seem to have as much of a personality as an actual agent. Should I getcha registered?”

“C-CADs and related equipment are by default sentient to some degree,” Binary replied. “And I’ve heard from some of the folks at the DoSAT that a few can even carry a decent conversation like I can. I’d like to know what being an agent is like sometime, honestly, if only I could just get a workable body. Like, say, an android or a _MegaMan Battle Network_ -ish .EXE file sorta thing.”

“Pray that you can knock on wood in that form, Binary, because when that happens to you, it’s probably going to be in the worst possible way,” said E.V.L. “I wished I could become a character of my own and look what happened to me.”

“I know, but still!”

The agents fell silent and continued to observe Kiana, who had gotten up and exited the room. They followed her to the main deck where Link was working, and the two of them soon started a short conversation. Link then decided to teach her about hacking, uploading the information directly to her brain.

“Twenty hours straight,” whispered E.V.L. “She’s… a machine.”

“Does she know kung fu?” asked Rayner.

“I was thinking more like C or Java,” said Binary. “Maybe a bit of FORTRAN, even, since this is like the late 90’s or something.”

“The Matrix is pretty much its own code system,” said Rayner, ignoring the way the C-CAD had run the joke into the dirt. “What’s more worryin’ is that there should be only _one_ operator onboard each ship. To see the current operator teach a recently freed mind to become an operator herself is… infuriatin’.”

“How so?” asked E.V.L. “Is it because it defies canon logic or does it suggest that Link will die and he wants her to take his place?”

“Probably both,” said Binary.

Morpheus walked in on them at that point, and after a brief conversation with them, hooked her up for a training session. This led to a jolt in the Word World that knocked the agents into a wooden wall. Rayner immediately stood up and took out his RA.

“The movie shifts between the simulation and the Neb repeatedly,” he said. “This means we could be seeing multiple scene shifts in rapid succession. Anyone who doesn’t want that, raise your hand.”

Both agents did so, and when Rayner looked down at the C-CAD, it showed a \\(O_O) emoticon.

“Thought as much,” he chuckled, opening a portal into Chapter 8.

> **Chapter VIII: Evolution**
> 
> **Kiana woke up in amazing amounts of pain. Despite the fact that it wasn't real, most of the muscles along her body ached and she felt stiffer than she had done in a long time.**
> 
> **She'd quite literally passed out after her session. She'd summoned up the strength to get back to her room, and then she'd collapsed face down. When she'd woken up, she honestly thought she was being suffocated until she realised she had her face pressed into the blanket.**

The agents looked at each other, confused.

“How exhausting would it have been for Neo to train that hard in canon?” asked E.V.L.

“The brain uses more energy than any other organ in the body,” said Rayner. “Cookin’ meat and gainin’ more energy from it was how people evolved bigger brains and smaller stomachs — and trainin’ via the mind instead of the body would likely burn calories just as quickly as the reverse, if not faster.”

“Neo was an exceptional case, however. He was strong.”

“Maybe that was ’cuz he was a Canon Stu,” added Binary. “But that’s no excuse for an eighteen-year-old like Kiana to go through the same mental rigor as a thirty-something-year-old Chosen One.”

“Touché,” said E.V.L.

Rayner gave the device a Not Amused look. “Don’t forget how I feel about Neo, Binary. But you raise a good point in that Kiana isn’t exactly strong as him. She threw up in her _lap_ , for Celestia’s sake! At least he had the sense to get off his chair first.”

“Eww.”

“I know, right? C’mon, let’s watch the Sues talk. It’ll be like watchin’ paint dry!”

“I was hoping we’d see grass grow,” said E.V.L. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“With prose like that, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Binary.

Kiana by this time was wandering **the bowels of the ship** (Rayner stifled a giggle), and soon encountered Kes in the operating room, reading the Matrix code. Of course, the question of how she could do that came up.

> **"You must have been studying it for years" she commented.**
> 
> **"Since I was five" Kes remarked carelessly.**
> 
> **"Shit" Kiana said, almost involuntarily. "Sorry, I just can't imagine having to leave the matrix at five years old"**
> 
> **"I didn't" Kes informed her. She stretched out her arms, pulling back the sleeve to expose the skin. "See? No plugs"**

“Oh, thank heavens,” said Rayner. “For a sec I was worried she _had_ plugs and the like, and _that_ would’ve made things even worse.”

“You cannot conceive or raise children who are plugged into the Matrix,” said E.V.L. “That’s impossible.”

“And I’ll give this Sue credit for understandin’ that. Still doesn’t excuse how Kiana is apparently a clone of Kes.”

“Why doesn’t she have her oval head, then?” asked Binary.

“Because the fic never explicitly stated that she did. Though two oval-headed Sues would’ve been an interestin’ sight.”

The agents decided not to sit through the rest of the boring, urple-prosed conversation, and Rayner opened a portal to a little further in the chapter. Specifically, they stepped through just as Kes detected, as Rayner put it, “a glitch in the Matrix”.

> **"Go get Morpheus, now!" Kes ordered. "Tell him Niobe's Inside and the code's going haywire"**
> 
> **"Won't he be sleeping or something?"**
> 
> **"He basically doesn't. Go, now!"**

“Well, this just got a lot more interesting,” said E.V.L.

“Do we move in now, or do we wait until something more intense happens?” asked Binary. “Like a Sentinel attack or something?”

“Why not in the Matrix, when their kind of agents are on the loose?” asked E.V.L.

“No guarantees of killin’ them off for real,” said Rayner. “The best way to ensure that they stay dead is to get them in the real world of this continuum. Which is, of course, a heck of a lot easier.”

“I see.”

Kiana soon brought Morpheus to the operating room, where he discovered that the code of the Matrix was changing at an alarming rate, effectively locking them out and Niobe in. He suggested contacting the _Logos_ , which Kes promptly did, only to discover that they were having the same problem. Some more frantic dialogue passed, and then Neo, Trinity, and the others arrived, upon which the Sues explained the situation.

The core of the Matrix was apparently being changed, and there was no way in. Rayner swore under his breath.

“What do we do now?” asked E.V.L. “The Matrix going through such a drastic upheaval certainly wouldn’t be consistent with canon.”

“It’s even more complicated than that!” cried Binary. “The ripple effect would be felt throughout the entire continuum! I’m betting there’s gonna be a _massive_ snapback within the Matrix once we reset everything.”

“And just for fun? Squiddies, incomin’!” said Rayner, checking the Words as an alarm went off. E.V.L. did the same and realized that indeed, a group of Sentinels was apparently approaching the ship.

“What do we do?!” cried Binary, his voice now sounding slightly more tinny than usual. “If the EMP goes off, I’ll be out like a light!”

“We wait, and then we get the Sues out before they can set it off,” said Rayner.

Morpheus suddenly ordered everyone to stay quiet, and the agents imitated the canons, the Sues, and the bit.

 **It was almost a minute before** they **suddenly heard it. The scraping of steel, the clunk of something heavy landing and an ominous boom as it moved. It was like there was a giant metallic spider climbing on the roof, surrounding them.**

Kiana was thrown to the side of the wall, and the narration described in lavish detail how she felt broken like a doll she’d had as a child. The agents were luckily thrown onto the floor, and on top of each other.

Things dissolved into urple-prosed chaos at that point, their surroundings turning crimson thanks to the fic describing Kiana’s vision going red. Someone shot a **creamy light** at the Sentinel (barely missing it but splattering its frame with a few drops of something pale and buttery), there was a blinding flash of some kind of red light, and everything around the agents went dark.

> **Ooh…now we hit some of the action part. And some more plot stuff comes into play. But mainly I wrote this because I was bored and wanted to get to the action stuff faster :)**
> 
> **Please review!**

“Binary! You okay?!” Rayner cried, smacking the device a few times. “If you die on us again, I’m gonna — Ah!” He’d hit the thing a little too hard, causing him to drop it onto some kind of Generic Floor.

“Ow! I’m fine, Butterfingers! You don’t have to yell!”

“And I’m glad for that! Let’s get to the next scene before things get ugly. Quick, quick!”

Skipping past the Author’s Notes at the start of Chapter Nine, they returned to the ship deck to see Kiana passed out on the floor, along with Kes struggling to escape the Sentinel.

Rayner grinned. “You know, we could grab Kiana now and end this mess immediately, _ja?_ ”

“What about Kes?” asked E.V.L. “If we try to snatch her, the Sentinel could kill her before we press charges.”

“We’ll wait ’til a more appropriate time. But you have all the charges for Kiana, right?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s get this pile of _Scheissdreck_ outta the way for good,” said Rayner. “And then we can go and marathon the entire trilogy like you suggested.”

“You programmed our disguises so my shadow powers remain, right?”

“Eeyup. Go for it, Glitter Girl.”

E.V.L. concentrated on Kiana’s body, willing it to be brought to her. It suddenly sank into its shadow and disappeared, the shadow itself swiftly moving towards her. Like a blob being absorbed into a bigger one, the moving shadow melded into her own. Kes was none the wiser as she saw the Sentinel being taken down. E.V.L. relaxed, panting hard, and smiled.

“Got her.”

“Excellent,” said Rayner, watching Kes wonder whether she should hit the EMP or not. “Now, let’s see what else this chapter has to—”

**Suddenly, a blast like a shockwave hit Kes, and the force of it chilled her to her bones. Her knuckles tightened on the Operating desk as the waves continued. When they receded, she thought the worst was over.**

As the agents expected, **She was wrong.**

“You were saying?” asked E.V.L.

“HANG ON TO SOMETHIN’!” Rayner cried as the ship went into a tailspin.

The two of them grabbed onto some nearby railings for dear life as the ship began spiralling downwards, time almost slowing down for everyone while things began hovering. To Rayner’s horror, this included the C-CAD, which floated away from him… straight towards the Sue.

“BINARY!” Rayner cried, but he couldn’t let go and reach for him.

The device let out the dial-up tone, loud enough for the Sue to look around in surprise. And then the ship hit the ground, throwing everyone and everything onto the floor.

There was a moment of silence as the Sue glanced from the device to the agents.

“Welp, we’re fucked,” said Rayner. And with a whinny of fury, he launched himself at her. Kes barely had any time to react before she felt his teeth lock onto her arm. E.V.L. desperately tried to reach out to him with her shadow, but there were too many dark areas everywhere.

 **Without warning the room shifted into pitch darkness. Kes looked upwards** from her fight with the blond man **with blind eyes, looking towards the gap in the roof where the sentinel had torn through. She should have been able to see something, even if it was just the scrap yard of the sewers, but there was nothing. Only random chinks of light falling down through small gaps.**

A noise like metal hail made everyone go silent. Giant chunks of metal were raining down everywhere. And then the Sue realized that the small slits of light were passing through the tentacles of the disabled Sentinel that had landed on the ship.

That was all the distraction the agents needed. Something engulfed Kesare’s head in even more blackness than before, pulling her into the shadows. She couldn’t scream, and struggling did nothing to free her. She heard muffled voices around her, someone seemed to be tying her wrist to someone, and then she could see again.

Kes and her unknown companion were apparently in the scrapyard where the _Nebuchadnezzar_ would one day crash-land after being destroyed by the Sentinels. A blond man in a trenchcoat, the same as the one that had attacked her, and an impossibly tall, dark-haired woman, both wearing shades, were glaring down at her and the person she was chained to. Looking around, she realized that lo and behold, it was Kiana.

“Good evening, ladies,” said Rayner, a smirk on his face. “We thought we’d stop by and say ‘fuck you’. Alright, everyone, let’s get busy.”

“What’s going on?!” cried Kiana. “Who are you two?”

“Three, actually,” said a voice from inside Rayner’s coat. The agent pulled out a small plastic device and pointed it at the girls.

[Kesare. OC. Mary Sue. Same ol’, same ol’.]

[Kiana, a.k.a. Cassandra Wilcox. OC. Mary Sue. 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101001 01110011 01101110 01101111 01110011 01110000 01101111 01101111 01101110]

Rayner grinned. “Looks like we’ll be eatin’ like kings tomorrow, eh, Glitter Girl?” he said.

“I can only imagine,” said Binary. “Now, both of you, by order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are hereby convicted of being Mary Sues on account of way too many charges to list. These include, among other things, the following: ruining the timeline of the film series; making everyone pander to the wishes of both of you; angsting too much for too little; creating a massively contrived coincidence that’s inconsistent with the logic of the _Matrix_ continuum; and failing to understand the logic of the film series in general.”

“Kesare, possible surname Anderson,” said Rayner, “you’re specifically charged with the following: bein’ the daughter of Neo and Trinity, in complete defiance of both canon logic and chronological consistency; stretchin’ the space between the first and second _Matrix_ movies just so you could grow up to an appropriate age; makin’ Neo and Trinity OOC just to bring you into existence; stealin’ the role of Link; hell, bein’ an operator at too young of an age; and havin’ an oval head due to a badly worded sentence.”

“And as for Kiana, a.k.a. Cassandra Wilcox,” said E.V.L., “you are specifically charged with the following: writing urple prose; also hacking at too young of an age; trivializing depression and _attempted suicide_ ; angsting even _more_ than your cloned sister; somehow being her cloned sister in the first place, which is _not_ how the machines work; in fact, being a contrived coincidence in undiluted physical form; and making clothing come to life during a fight sequence.”

“For your crimes, your punishment is death,” Rayner finished. “Neither of you get any last words. Any ideas, guys?”

“I have one,” said Binary. “Put her on the ship during the canon events. See what happens then.”

“Well, the squiddies are ruled out because the EMP went off before they could destroy the ship,” said E.V.L. “But maybe if…”

Rayner and E.V.L. looked at each other, and exchanged a grin. The Sues looked at them, terrified, but before they could say or do anything, a portal had opened up beneath them. They landed with a _whump_ inside the _Nebuchadnezzar_ — and specifically, in the operating room. A bald man with a goatee and mustache whirled to face them, holding a rifle in his hand.

“Who are you two?!” he cried.

“I’m the operator of the _Nebuchadnezzar,_ and she’s with me!” cried Kes, pulling Kiana close.

The man took one look at them, and then aimed his electric rifle at them both. They only had barely enough time to scream.

Rayner held his nose as he heard the ZAP of the weapon going off, no doubt avoiding the resultant smell akin to honey-glazed ham like it was the plague, and then motioned to E.V.L. She thrust her arm through the portal, aiming the neuralyzer at Cypher. _FLASH!_

“You’ve never met or killed any teenage girls on this ship,” she called through the portal. “Have a good day.”

Cypher blinked and turned, not noticing that two shadowy tentacles had dropped through the portal and hoisted the charred corpses up by their necks. They and the portal vanished as soon as he’d turned around again. He paused, shrugged, and went back to his canon business.

After sedating Rayner for a third time, E.V.L. opened a portal and dumped the corpses into the Cafeteria. Sue Souffle was definitely on the menu tonight, and anyway, the machines would end up in a pretty bad state if glitter got into any of their recycled batteries.

“This is the part where we neuralyze the canons, isn’t it?” she asked.

“And that bit needs to be sent to Zion and assimilated into the canon,” Rayner added. “Alright, time to clean up after this mess.”

**********

“You’re the One and his love interest and you haven’t had a stupid kid. You’re recoverin’ from Cypher’s betrayal and the Sentinel attack…”

“Wasn’t that already the case in the fic itself?”

“Do I look like I care?”

“Oh, never mind.”

********************

**Post-Mission**

After sending Elysia to Zion, the agents opened a portal back to their RC. Rayner collapsed onto his bed, the C-CAD resting on his chest, while E.V.L. sat in front of the console to write the mission report.

“That was an… experience,” she said.

“What, workin’ with our new C-CAD or taking down two Sues at once?” asked Rayner.

“Both.”

“Do we watch the _Matrix_ trilogy now, or are you guys too tired to do that?” asked Binary.

“If I said yes, we’d probably get a new mission before we can even try,” said Rayner. “Maybe we could ask the Flowers, though?”

“Fat chance,” replied E.V.L. “I’ll have to write the mission report first.”

Rayner sat up, clutching the device. “You were the one who wanted to see the entire series back-to-back!”

“When I feel like it. I have more important things to do.”

“Like what, bein’ a demeanin’ prick? You’ve been like that ever since the Flowers let you free-roam for the weekend! I know you’re happy about your development, but I don’t want you being domineerin’ and disrespectful while you’re at it!”

“So what if there are caveats? I like not having to be locked up every once in a while.”

“The entire buckin’ _reason_ you were locked up is _because_ you could cause inconveniences like what we went through today! Remember what you said to Binary?”

“I thought they bound me to prevent me from invading the multiverse. That is no longer one of my goals, and we both know it.”

“But what if you pick up that ambition again? We’ll hafta kick you out, and I wouldn’t want that!”

“So what? It’s not like you and I are married or anything…”

“You come over here and say that again, Glitter Girl!” he growled, standing up suddenly and accidentally dropping the C-CAD for a fourth time. “Tell us we’re married so I can file a divorce!”

“You know what, Pony Boy, _fine_ ,” E.V.L. growled, standing up and whirling to face him. “You’re right in that I was the one who asked, so I’ll go and talk to them. But really, can’t you ever take a joke?”

“That wasn’t a joke, you insolent, oversized piece of—”

Binary’s screen showed an >_< emoticon as he finally spoke up. “Rayner, E.V.L., will you two _please_ do me a favor and _shut the fuck up already?_ ”

The agents looked down at the device, the girl horrified, the boy suddenly grinning so hard it hurt. Rayner promptly forgot his anger and doubled over in raucous laughter, and all E.V.L. could do was turn around, pull her head off, and thump it against the console desk, face-down.

“I am unequivocally getting our C-CAD fixed up after I talk to the Sunflower,” she groaned. “And we should definitely just stick to euphemisms next time.”

#  **[END]**

**Author's Note:**

> NO BINARY ISN’T A NEW AGENT HE’S A TALKING C-CAD WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT. Anyway, I regret to announce that things are going to come to a close for my DMS agents pretty soon, since I’ve been told by several of my betas that too many teams would be hard to manage. I’ll probably stick to just two main teams and some background characters eventually, the way some other Boarders do. I’ll have to tie up most of the loose ends with my assassins first, though, so keep an eye out for at least few more missions from them before things go down!
> 
> Anyway, ugh. Just… Ugh. I haven’t seen the Matrix trilogy in years, and this fic made my head hurt. Not to project my own views into my agents, but Rayner said basically everything I felt about these two OCs. Don’t get me wrong, Trinity having a child doesn’t upset me by itself, as Trinity could’ve survived to give birth to one if she’d been a bit more lucky when the Neb crashed. But the very thought of a descendant of the One who gets the same role as him gives me metaphorical hives, for obvious reasons. Kiana being exactly that was ridiculous and totally implausible in terms of canon logic. The other thing I hated about this fic was the fact that they got the timeline wrong. Reloaded doesn’t take place decades after the original movie, and certainly not long enough afterward for a child to go from conception to teenaged years! Again, the idea of a descendant of Neo/Trinity is fine by itself, but they shouldn’t have had one so soon. It’s possible that a goodfic could’ve been written about it in the form of an AU where Trinity survived the crash of the Nebuchadnezzar and had a child after the end of the war with the machines, but Neo shouldn’t be a part of such a story because of canon reasons. As it is, just… Ugh, ugh, ugh.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! I’ll probably start wrapping things up with my assassins sometime next year.
> 
> -SkarmorySilver


End file.
